Mike Dean apologizes after Cucurella hair pull error

Mike Dean apologizes after Cucurella hair pull error during Chelsea 2-2 draw at home to Tottenham in the Premier League

Marc Cucurella remonstrates with referee Anthony Taylor after the incident at Stamford Bridge against Tottenham where Cristian Romero appeared to pull his hair before Spurs equalized. It ended 2-2. (Photo credit: Sky Sports)

Every single premier league club will have a long list of what they see as unfair Video Assistant Referee (VAR) decision against their respective clubs since the technology was introduced after the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

VAR was introduced to curb referee mistakes and help them be better with decision making.

But that hasn’t gotten any better with teams still losing games due to clear and obvious referee errors, prompting observers to wonder if it’s worth it in the first place.

Everyone at Chelsea is appalled at referee Anthony Taylor’s decision not to call Christian Romero’s obvious hair pull on Marc Cucurella in a passage of play that earned Tottenham a corner kick that resulted into their second goal.

Mike Dean, the man in the VAR room on the day has come out to apologize for not asking Anthony Taylor to review the incident on the monitor and he has now been dropped for the coming weekend games but does that solve the problem?

Mike Dean retired from on-field refereeing last season and was subsequently redeployed to the VAR room where he hasn’t been exactly effective. 

The questions about the efficacy of VAR will continue to rumble on each time a questionable incident like the event at Stamford Bridge happens.

As long as no one pays for it severely, there’s no hope of consistency but the league board is currently reviewing and the observers are watching.